Last year, after 39 years of singlehood, I married a lovely woman and we went on our honeymoon to Ireland, Scotland and England. There I had the great pleasure of tasting Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer. Just as the chalkboard inviting us in to the Phoenix Pub in London suggested, it was indeed tickety-boo on a hot day.
Whilst on our trip, I did my very best to enjoy Crabbie's wherever I could, an effort that lead to a sense of well-being and pleasure that has rarely been rivaled in my life. Of course, this isn't saying much, as on the whole my life has been one with only the modest pleasures that a middle-class upbringing can provide; nothing like the posh extravaganza that must be life at the Crabbie's corporate office.
My extensive research, which consists of googling a bit, and bitching to my friends, has informed me that Crabbie's is not available in the United States. This is a keen disappointment, somewhat akin to making a dear friend while on holiday and then never seeing them again. You know that warm glow of companionship when one meets a kindred spirit, the sudden delight in finding shared interests and that ineffable something that is sympatico? And then never again? It's not quite crushing...but it does add to the pile of rather dreary things that make one's life anything but tickety-boo.
In desperation, what I can not purchase here in Los Angeles, I am prepared to make myself. I have all the requisite equipment to brew some delicious ginger beer, but I simply don't have the recipe. I have done even more extensive research - which is to say, more googling, and being encouraged by my friends to shut up about Crabbie's and make them some. I have no recipe. I am bereft.
Dear people at Crabbie's, bringers-of-the-boo-which-is-tickety, I implore you - lend me your recipe. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I do have many friends, and they are all anxious to taste the things that I brew, much of which turns out fairly satisfactory. Imagine this as an opportunity to seed the States with a sort of 5th Column of Crabbie's partisans, ready to take to the hills and ...well, drink delicious things. And spread the word!
I would gladly be your ambassador to the States, or at least to Venice, California. Or at least to my block. Surely I would qualify for that. Will you help me out?
Yours etc;
Davy Krieger
